


Familiar Stranger

by Lassarina



Category: Final Fantasy Tactics
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-27
Updated: 2012-03-27
Packaged: 2017-11-02 14:05:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/369809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lassarina/pseuds/Lassarina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A human comes to her den, but not to hunt her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Familiar Stranger

**Author's Note:**

> Written for AreYouGame on Dreamwidth.

The humans came to her den, and wrought havoc in the mines. Reis waited in the depths, hoping they would leave, but she resigned herself to fight when they came to her den. There were many of them, and demons flowed up from deeper parts of the mine to fight them, all over some shiny baubles they carried.

Humans could be so stupid.

The man with the sword approached her. Reis braced for yet more battle; certainly he and his companions had made short enough work of the other creatures that plagued the coal mine. Yet he made no move to strike her, and instead laid his hand on her shoulder. His touch on her scales sent sparks shivering down her body, though she knew him not.

"Reis! At last I've found you! As I live and breathe, I will let no harm befall you!"

Her tongue knew not human speech, but that saved her having to know his name, for she did not. Yet he seemed to know her, and she seemed to know his touch, strange as that sounded.

"I will see you freed from this form," he said, and the words held the weight of a vow.

It echoed oddly in her mind, reminding her of something someone had said to her before—before when? She did not know. Yet his touch on her shoulder felt both familiar and wrong—familiar in that she knew his touch and his scent, tasted on the air with a flickering of her tongue, and wrong in that it did not feel the way she thought she remembered it.

If she did not remember him, how could she remember his touch?

He was true enough to his word, fighting to defend her (though she was quite capable of acting in her own defense.) When the demons lay dead, the young man who had been commanding the leading force came near enough to speak—though, she noted, still outside the range of her claws and elemental breath.

"My thanks, Ramza. I could not have saved Reis without you." The man seemed pleased, though he was loath to leave her side and loath to stop touching her, it seemed.

She found she did not mind.

The man he had called Ramza nodded. "Then we have found the dragon you sought."

Reis found that interesting. A human sought her out, but not to kill her?

"A companion more dear to me than life itself. Mere words can be no fitting thanks." He stroked her shoulder, and she felt the strangest fluttering within; somehow she craved more of that touch. She, who had fled here to avoid all humans.

"As you say, Beowulf." The blonde woman whose sword had called down holy light clapped him on the shoulder. "Just take care."

"I shall," he said. "Reis, come with us?" Rather than a command, he entreated her.

She did not remember him, but his presence stirred something in her memories. She knew he was important to her. And thus, she followed him out of the Gollund coal mine, with only the faint hope of remembering more to guide her.


End file.
